


hold me a little while

by statusquo_ergo



Series: our names buried down in the dust [3]
Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hospitals, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, brief mention of gun violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29759508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen to you and me.
Relationships: Mike Ross & Rachel Zane, Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Series: our names buried down in the dust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154834
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	hold me a little while

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I don’t have a complete thought out prompt but one where Harvey or Mike gets extremely hurt and barely makes it out alive or one about a situation/argument that leads them to getting a divorce? 
> 
> Oh, divorce is not really my thing for these guys, but I did my very best with the “extremely hurt” angle! Thank you for the prompt!

The world is a nauseous blur, smears of shapes and color all tinged in white and red as his head swims, his feet slipping out from under him as he runs, and runs, and runs into the hospital, past the check-in desk, up to the emergency area, the waiting room, and he runs until he sees her sitting there, curled up in her little chair with bandages taped to her arms, wrapped around her wrists, tears in her eyes until she sees him and they start to fall, sobs wracking her body as she clings to him, “Mike, Mike, I was so scared, Mike, god, I was…”

Mike sits beside her and wraps his arm around her shoulders, holding her close as she cries, and cries, and cries.

“Rachel,” he says, cradling her head in his hand, “Rachel, what happened?”

Shaking her head, she presses her face against his chest, clutching at him with her scraped hands, her bandaged arms, and Mike holds her close, anchoring himself around her body as she curls into his.

“Rachel,” he murmurs, “god, Rachel…”

“Mike,” she whimpers, “he shot right at us, I— I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, I was…”

He holds her close, stroking his hand down her back as her body shakes and her tears fall.

“What happened,” he says again, a patient refrain he’ll repeat until she’s ready, holding her as she struggles to breathe. “It’s okay. It’s okay. What happened.”

She sniffles, rubbing her palm into her eye, and he tries to concentrate, tries to focus on her, on anything.

“I don’t know,” she says, her voice halting and thick. “We left the courthouse, we were…” Her red eyes, so wide, stare up at him desperately, and he wishes he had answers for her, he wishes anyone did. “We were walking down the stairs,” she forces the words out, “and he was—standing there, on the street, and he didn’t _say_ anything, he just—shot, and everyone fell down, and he shot again, I don’t— I don’t know what he was shooting _at,_ Mike, it was so—loud, I…”

What more is there to say of it than that? Nothing new, not a word. Mike cradles the back of her head and she rests her face against his chest, and the world moves on around them, spinning on an angle, tipped slightly on its side.

All that we think we know, it’s all gone backwards.

“Rachel,” he says, stilling his hand on her back. “Where’s Harvey?”

Clutching her hands tight in his shirt, she shakes her head against his chest, and he tightens his grip.

Okay. Okay. All of this, we’ll figure it out.

They sit for ages, hours and days and weeks and years, her crying falling silent and his vision going in and out of focus. Patients come and go, sit and stand and walk away, screaming, shouting, murmurs and whispers, meaningless noise filling in the silence in his ears as nothing happens, nothing at all.

“Rachel Zane,” someone says. A nurse, dressed all in green. Rachel looks up and presses her scraped hand against her cheek, and Mike drops his arms away.

“This way please.”

Sniffling, rubbing her nose, Rachel stands to follow, and Mike grabs aimlessly, even though he doesn’t really want her to stay.

“Wait,” he says, “wait, where are you going? Where’s she going?”

“CT scan,” the nurse says, a delicate balance between sympathy and indifference. “She may have hit her head when she landed on the stairs, we’re checking for any trauma.”

When she landed on the stairs, when—everyone fell down, and—he shot again, and—

And—

“Is Harvey Specter here?” he asks, sweat breaking out along his hairline over his furrowed brow, all the blurred colors and moving shapes narrowed down to a single point of focus, a dark spot in a mess of light. The nurse looks at the clipboard in her hand, at pages and pages of words without answers, and Rachel sniffles again and nods, once, twice, rubbing her eyes and folding her arms over her chest.

“Excuse me, sir,” the nurse says, taking Rachel away, far away as horror clenches Mike’s heart tight in his chest and the dark spot begins to spread out, out, threatening to cover everything in its path if he doesn’t push it away, if he doesn’t get control, if he doesn’t find Harvey, if everything isn’t going to be okay.

“Hi,” he blurts out, falling against the reception desk. “Hi,” he repeats when the nurse looks up at him, “I need to see Harvey Specter, where’s Harvey Specter?”

“Harvey Specter sustained a single gunshot wound to the abdomen,” the nurse says, tightly controlled, utterly professional. “He’s in surgery right now.”

No, no, you must have misunderstood. That can’t be Harvey, that’s not the Harvey I know. These things don’t happen to Harvey, that’s not allowed.

“When can I see him?”

The nurse looks up at him with just a hint of pity, unless Mike is imagining things he wishes were there that aren’t.

“He’ll need to rest after surgery,” the nurse says. “He won’t be able to take any visitors until tomorrow, at the earliest.”

The dark spot gets a little bigger, and Mike takes a step back, then another, until he knocks into a chair, the same as the one where he sat before, or maybe different. He sinks down, his hands falling to his knees, and the dark spot gets bigger, and bigger still.

Tomorrow. You can see him tomorrow, maybe. If we’re lucky, if everything goes very well. If we all make it through the night, if we’re all still breathing when we make it out the other side.

Where’s Harvey?

Where’s Harvey?

“Where is Harvey Specter?”

Donna. That’s Donna’s voice. Donna rushing to the reception desk, Donna looking for answers.

“Mike!”

Donna asking him for something, anything, please, what do you know, what can you tell me?

Nothing.

Nothing.

She crouches in front of him and grabs his hands in hers, looking up into his eyes even though his gaze is a thousand yards away.

“Mike, what happened?” she asks. “What happened to Harvey? Mike, where is he?”

Mike looks down at his hands in hers as the questions slip from his mind, nothing sticking long enough for him to grasp. What’s happening? I don’t know, please tell me.

“He’s in surgery,” Rachel says, appearing out of nowhere, stepping out of the ether to set her hand on Donna’s back, to meet her where she sits, where she stands as Donna wraps her in a fierce hug, a vicious, violent thing of fear and desperation. Rachel clings to her, her tears long stopped now but her hands still scraped and red, her bandages still clean and white.

Mike falls back into his chair as they talk, their words washing over him, water through a sieve. It comes in waves, the silence and the noise, the here and now. People move around him, up and down the hall, in and out of chairs, and he sits, and waits, for god knows what.

Answers. Tell me anything at all.

What happened? How is Harvey how’s the surgery going? What do the doctors think, are they doing all they can? What happens next?

Can’t you tell me something?

“Sir?”

He looks up suddenly, a bolt of lightning in the dim. The nurse smiles down at him kindly, and he lets himself be pulled up to his feet.

“Sir, maybe you’d better go home and get some sleep.”

“No,” Mike shakes his head, “no, I need to— I’m waiting for Harvey Specter, he’s in surgery, I, I can’t leave until he—”

“Sir,” the nurse interrupts with a smile, “Mister Specter’s surgery is finished, but he needs to rest. He won’t be taking any visitors until tomorrow.”

Taking visitors, then they— Then he—

“The injury was quite severe,” the nurse says, “but the surgery went very well. You should go home, and come back tomorrow.”

Mike falls down into his chair and looks at his hands.

What happens now?

\---

Night passes by, unsettled and dark, but morning comes on as it always does, full of second chances and new beginnings.

The hospital is swarming with people, doctors and nurses and staff and patients and visitors and all sorts of people. Coming and going, sitting and standing, the world outside is a nauseous blur of colors and noise, utterly incomprehensible, so bright and so loud and saying nothing at all.

Mike stands at the foot of the bed in a small room, the light pooled at his feet where it shines in through the window.

Harvey’s face is so pale.

The hospital gown he wears is white, with little navy polka dots, and his face is so pale.

No one’s here to see it, the dark lines of his lashes against his cheeks, the off-white of his parted lips, the sweat dried in his dirty hair. The heart monitor blinking and flashing behind him, the clip attached to his finger, resting on top of the stiff blue blanket that covers the wound he survived, covers the stitches in his skin, the scar he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life.

There will be people, later. There will be visitors, there will be so many of them. All the people who know Harvey and love him, all the people who wish him well.

This moment, though, this first moment, is just for Mike.

He stands at the foot of the bed and looks at the light on the floor.

What am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to say?

Why am I so afraid?

Mike smiles to himself. Afraid. Harvey would be so angry with him to hear that; you’re afraid, he would say, afraid of what? Afraid you’ll jinx it? You make your own luck, kid, how many times do I have to tell you?

Over and over again, until your voice goes hoarse and you can’t tell me any more.

I’m going to be fine, Harvey would say. I’m fine, the doctors cleared me to go home tomorrow.

No, Mike would say, no, they didn’t. I know you’re invincible, but please take care of yourself. For me, please do your best, because I need you to live.

Harvey would shake his head and turn around, but he wouldn’t get too far; there’s no space to run away in this little room, after all. It’s okay, though. Mike would wait. He will wait. Mike will wait a hundred days for him to get better, if that’s what it takes. A hundred years for that ashen look to leave his face, for the light to come back into his eyes.

The man is under arrest, Mike would say. The man who shot you. He was aiming for the district attorney, but he hit you instead. He’s going away for a long time, so you don’t have to worry about that any more.

You’re the only one who was injured, Mike wouldn’t say. He wasn’t even aiming for you, and out of all the people on those courthouse steps, you’re the only one he hit.

Harvey would see it in his eyes, though. The words he wasn’t saying, the secrets he doesn’t know how long he can keep. Harvey would let him, if he wanted, he’d let him keep it forever. Keep it until you forget, and it’ll be lost in time and no one will ever know.

Mike hopes he forgets. He hopes he doesn’t have to hold onto this for long.

Harvey lies under a stiff blue blanket with a heart monitor clipped to his finger, his pale lips parted and his breathing a little bit labored.

I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you, Mike would say.

Harvey might smile.

You don’t have to worry about it, he might say. You’re stuck with me.

Mike steps forward slowly, into the light, careful that his sneakers don’t squeak across the tile floor. He looks down at Harvey’s face, this face he knows so well suddenly rendered so unfamiliar, and he slides his hand into Harvey’s heavy one, resting on top of the stiff blue blanket.

I love you, he would say.

Harvey might smile.

I know, he might say.

Mike would laugh, if he said that. Mike would laugh, and everything would be all right.

Standing in a pool of light shining in through the window, Mike runs his thumb along the back of Harvey’s limp hand and looks down at his closed eyes, the dark lines of his lashes against his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Sorry for what? Harvey would ask, because he’d know Mike doesn’t have an answer.

All of it.

There, in the first moment, the first step back to where we started from when we didn’t know any better, Mike runs his thumb along the back of Harvey’s hand and looks down at his wretched face as the dark line of his lashes parts slowly, just a fraction, a bleary crack. Mike stands with Harvey’s hand in his and smiles as Harvey opens his eyes as much or as little as he can, and he’d like to think that Harvey sees it, that he knows Mike is there before he closes them again and his breathing gets less labored, a little bit.

Mike squeezes his hand tight and lets go.

Everything will be better tomorrow.

Every day, we tell ourselves.


End file.
